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Plastic-collecting worms return pollutants to sender

A favourite with anglers, lugworms may accelerate the arrival of toxic substances in our food by gorging themselves on grains of waste plastic in sediment.

The particles are bits of plastic waste that are broken down in the sea and which then soak up waterborne contaminants. Since lugworms are sediment-feeders and low in the food chain, the contaminants will be concentrated when the worms are eaten by fish and crabs.

“It accelerates the mechanism by which contaminants accumulate in the food chain,” says Emma Teuten at the University of Plymouth, UK.